Also, when he says 'good', you don't have to wonder what he means by 'good', because what Catholics call 'good' might not be the same as what many atheists may define good and does this mean they'll still have a mission in mind to bring the world to Catholic morality? Or are we talking about a more 'vague' good, where people live life without hurting others and doing the best they can to be positive in the manner in which they behave but are naturally subject to flaws?

He means:

1. The object, the intention, and the circumstances make up the "sources," or constitutive elements, of the morality of human acts. (Source)

2. Moral conscience, present at the heart of the person, enjoins him at the appropriate moment to do good and to avoid evil[. . .]In all he says and does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows to be just and right. It is by the judgment of his conscience that man perceives and recognizes the prescriptions of the divine law. (Source)

3. The moral law is the work of divine Wisdom[. . .]It prescribes for man the ways, the rules of conduct that lead to the promised beatitude; it proscribes the ways of evil which turn him away from God and his love. (Source)

Basically, he's talking about a universal objective morality that is intuitively knowable to individual humans via conscience, and is expanded upon via God's revelation (particularly through Jesus).

1. The object, the intention, and the circumstances make up the "sources," or constitutive elements, of the morality of human acts.

2. Moral conscience, present at the heart of the person, enjoins him at the appropriate moment to do good and to avoid evil[. . .]In all he says and does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows to be just and right. It is by the judgment of his conscience that man perceives and recognizes the prescriptions of the divine law.

3. The moral law is the work of divine Wisdom[. . .]It prescribes for man the ways, the rules of conduct that lead to the promised beatitude; it proscribes the ways of evil which turn him away from God and his love. Basically, he's talking about a universal objective morality that is intuitively knowable to individual humans via conscience, and is expanded upon via God's revelation (particularly through Jesus).

Man am I good or what?

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Translation: I'll do some bullshitting for the Pope so we can get out of this mess. If I type enough fluff and stuff it will sound like he didn't mean what he said. Three or four paragraphs of bullshit and religious mumbo-jumbo ought to be enough

Basically, he's talking about a universal objective morality that is intuitively knowable to individual humans via conscience, and is expanded upon via God's revelation (particularly through Jesus).

Ah yes, I remember learning about this argument at school. So rather than following the absolutist morality of the bible, it would appear the Catholic argument is that God's judgement comes from within as your conscience, but through the bible you are able to understand it more. Meaning, somebody who isn't on a direct path to God may still please him by listening to their moral conscience and doing good.

Obviously as a non-believer I have a different take on it so I'll leave it out as it's not relevant to Catholic beliefs, but the part that does worry me about this approach to morality, whilst seemingly better than some of the more literalist approaches to Christianity, it's the part where somebody's conscience is telling them to do something most would consider despicable, if their conscience is of this universal morality gifted by God, then could it not go the other way? That a person who is doing wrong feels justified because they believe God is telling them to do it via their conscience? For example, somebody who's not of stable mind, who might think it's okay to kill a man in cold blood. Yes, you could argue if he believes in God, he would/should be reading the bible for guidance, but if it's the case, I am sure one cannot deny there are parts in the bible which could mislead a man that could lead a man onto a different path to the one you see as being the righteous one, which in turn could be dark and bloody.

Or is there more to it? Perhaps something I've missed?

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“It is difficult to understand the universe if you only study one planet” - Miyamoto MusashiWarning: I occassionally forget to proofread my posts to spot typos or to spot poor editing.

I have always been baffled by the fact that TRUE believers don't celebrate when their loved ones die.

This brings back a memory of an adorable woman with dementia at a nursing home where I worked. It was customary to close the doors of the resident's rooms when the mortician was removing the remains of a deceased resident. Every time we did this EJ would protest quite loudly. "Why do you close the doors when someone dies? We're all going to die someday! You better not do that when I die! I know where I'm goin' when I die! You better celebrate and play When the Saints go Marchin In!"

« Last Edit: May 25, 2013, 06:17:34 PM by LoriPinkAngel »

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It doesn't make sense to let go of something you've had for so long. But it also doesn't make sense to hold on when there's actually nothing there.

"Good" is not the word I have in mind. When you discover the reply was not to you, and that I didn't mention the Pope at all... nah, you'll probably still manage to work it into your delusions I mentioned earlier.

Yes, there's a bit more on conscience, some of which can be found in the pages I linked above and their surrounding pages. I think these are relevant to what you're asking:

It is important for every person to be sufficiently present to himself in order to hear and follow the voice of his conscience. This requirement of interiority is all the more necessary as life often distracts us from any reflection, self-examination or introspection (Source)

Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened[. . .]The education of the conscience is a lifelong task[. . .]In the formation of conscience the Word of God is the light for our path[. . .]We are assisted by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advice of others and guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church. (Source)

Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed. (Source)

In other words, God makes morality knowable to all of us via conscience, but to achieve that knowledge one must cultivate and educate that conscience. A well-formed conscience will allow a person to recognize the moral law written onto our hearts, while a poorly formed one will lead us to confuse or disregard that message. The Church believes that the fullest, most complete revelation of that moral law comes through Jesus, and thus turning towards Him and his Church will lead one to cultivate that conscience.

Let x = "the thing my post was addressing"If you follow the links I provided, and spend some time looking around, you can verify quite easily that it is evidence of x. By emailing the Vatican or talking to a local priest, you can test x. By clicking on the links repeatedly, or by flipping through a Catechism at your local book store, you can repeat x.

If you're not sure what x is, then I suggest you "learn to read a post" as I suggested above.

Mooby, as most here know - when dealing with you there are never any goalposts to shift. They're a s imaginary as your Sky Daddy. So please don't try to pull your B.S. with me. I've seen it all before.

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Let x = "the thing my post was addressing"If you follow the links I provided, and spend some time looking around, you can verify quite easily that it is evidence of x. By emailing the Vatican or talking to a local priest, you can test x. By clicking on the links repeatedly, or by flipping through a Catechism at your local book store, you can repeat x.

If you're not sure what x is, then I suggest you "learn to read a post" as I suggested above.

There is no evidence at any of your "links" or in any of your garbage Catholic "books". It's all religious bullshit. That's the problem - we've gone over and over and over it for years here. What you consider evidence is, to a critical thinker, is simply indoctrination and delusion. You are delusional and because of this, you don't know how to filter out proper from improper evidence, and you sure as hell don't know how to test it.

So, following your ridiculous "links" is utter nonsense, because there is nothing of value there to a critical thinker. It would be as useless as me following links to religious sites explaining how this could be true -

For anyone reading this, I'm simply showing the tactics of Mr. Mooby to the uninitiated. He's even been banned from this forum before for essentially doing the same thing, although it takes somewhat of a trained eye to spot at first.

He was banned for lawyering rules which means he will just keep looking at finer and finer or more obscure meanings of words until he thinks he's got to the point where they don't mean anything at all, or has manipulated them to suit his goals, in essence no different than what he's doing right now. He will never actually deal with the essence of your point. He will simply add more and more layers of obfuscation and more and more Clintonesque-like responses, like what the meaning of "is" is.

Or, add more "links" full of the most incredible and idiotic theist apologetics you can ever imagine. Oh there's tons of "scholarly" comments he'll point you to. If you have a few drinks and are in the right mood they almost start to sound like they know what the fuck they are talking about, until you wake up sober the next morning and realize you got suckered by some of the best bullshit artists this planet ever produced - the theist "scholars" I mean. Yes folks, it's a skill and they have it down to a fucking art - watch yourself.

Then when Papa Bullshitter - the Pope - slips up and tells the atheists that he'll meet us at the pearly gates, well that's when the bullshitters really get down to their assigned tasks. They'll really come out of their holes and put the pedal to the metal. No holds barred. They'll talk and talk and add so many layers of bullshit, references, papers, books, you name it - you can barely even remember what Papa Bullshitter even said. Aren't they good!

If you enjoy that kind of back-and-forth, or you are a newbie that wants to practice debating a truly delusional theist, then he's your man. I'd actually suggest giving it a go, for a while. But I warn you, it's a bottomless pit, and I do mean pit. You won't like what's piled up at the bottom either. Can't you smell it already?

Anyways, Seppuku, you've kind of hinted at where the Catholics stand with regards to other faiths. Basically, Catholics believe that anyone can be saved through God's grace, and the ways we align ourselves with that grace include:- Faith- Good works

Obviously, the Christian notion of faith begins to stretch as you move outside of Christianity, especially with regards to non-Abrahamic religions and irreligion. However, if you view it in terms of revelation (things that God has shown to humans), it begins to make a bit more sense.

At the highest end, Catholics believe the fullest and most complete revelation is through Jesus, and that God continues to guide our understanding of this through the Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church. Thus, following Catholic teachings is the best way to align oneself with that saving grace and orient towards salvation.

At the lowest end, Catholics believe that God has revealed Himself on a personal level to each person via his or her conscience that provides a natural inclination towards goodness and truth. Even if a person intellectually rejects the notions of the divine and/or absolute morality, if she or he cultivates that conscience and tries to be a good person, we believe it is still possible to align towards saving grace and ultimately be saved.

Of course, in the middle is an entire spectrum of revelation: Protestants have the fullness of revelation in Jesus but not Sacred Tradition to help deepen understanding of Him, Jews and Muslims have the Old Testament revelations but not the fullness of Jesus' revelations (Jews do not recognize Him; Muslims see Him as one of many prophets--not the most complete revelation), other faiths may recognize God or gods but lack the complete message, etc.

Following from all this, the key is aligning oneself towards saving grace through one's own experience of faith (used loosely to include implicit faith through conscience described above). Rejecting that faith means to turn away from that grace and reject salvation. So it certainly does not include the joke from the OP's video: "Aw shit, I'm good then. Back to the strip club!" On the contrary, such a rejection of one's faith in favor of carnal desires is what Catholics believe pulls man away from God and puts us at risk for eternal death.

In other words, those who know divine truth but choose to reject it (whether it be a Christian rejecting Christ or an atheist abandoning conscious) are also choosing to reject salvation. This isn't the same as ignorance: never knowing or recognizing that truth. I honestly don't know where those who lose their faith fall into this spectrum, though my personal view is that it'd be closer to the latter.

This doesn't mean that Catholics shouldn't try to convert others. On the contrary, through bringing others to the Catholic faith we believe we're bringing them closer to God's purest revelation. It also doesn't mean that those who aren't Catholic should be content with just being a good person and not worry about their beliefs. On the contrary, each person has an obligation to explore the revelations God has given them to the best of their ability, and be willing to go where that journey takes them.

What it does mean is that Catholics should not look down upon or despise those who do not share our beliefs, since we believe that God's grace is for everyone. Rather, we should respect those with different beliefs for us and look for common ground, even on a level as basic as "do good," and try to "meet there."

Hopefully this didn't come off as sounding preachy, because that's not my intent.

For anyone reading this, I'm simply showing the tactics of Mr. Mooby to the uninitiated. He's even been banned from this forum before for essentially doing the same thing, although it takes somewhat of a trained eye to spot at first.

He was banned for lawyering rules which means he will just keep looking at finer and finer or more obscure meanings of words until he thinks he's got to the point where they don't mean anything at all, or has manipulated them to suit his goals, in essence no different than what he's doing right now.

Do you mean like the Hebrew word for circle that the xians argue can be translated as sphere?